Today""s business environment is changing rapidly. The pace of this change has accelerated by virtue of new technologies such as increasingly powerful personal computers, local area networks, wide area networks, and the Internet. However, existing sales development training programs were developed and designed for implementation during the pre-Internet era. The widespread availability of information, which has been made possible in part because of the Internet, has put the customer in control of the sales process.
Essentially, if a customer knows his precise needs, the vast amount of information virtually instantaneously at his disposal through the internet will permit him to locate the best solution to his needs. In order to be successful in this type of a sales environment, it is necessary for sales personnel to understand their customers perhaps even better than the customers do themselves. In other words, it is in large part the function of the sales professional to determine with a high degree of specificity exactly what the customer""s needs are. Subsequently, the sales professional will be able to tailor a product or service to meet that customer""s needs precisely and completely.
Sales professionals therefore require a tool that unlocks the secrets of understanding customers"" behavior, in order to acquire knowledge of the customer""s needs. By thoroughly understanding their customers"" needs, sales professionals can enable their customers to see things the way they really are. Particularly, the sales professional who thoroughly understands his customer""s needs will be best able to tailor his products or services accurately to meet those needs.
Such information does not exist in a vacuum, however. The successful sales professional must simultaneously understand the capabilities and applicability of his products and services, in order to tailor those products and services to match the customer""s needs precisely. Thus there exists a need for a tool which can quickly profile a customer""s needs while simultaneously serving as a roadmap to enable the sales professional to tailor his offering in response.
Furthermore, in light of the current circumstances in today""s information-rich business environment, customers"" needs can change rapidly in response to newly-acquired information. The successful sales professional therefore needs a tool such as that described above, yet which is readily accessible, and capable of responding instantaneously to changes in customer needs.
Consistent with the above, there is also a need for a tool which managers can use to gauge the market in which their products and services compete, and to structure a marketing strategy and organization to exploit that market, while simultaneously providing the highest quality products and services to customers.
In order to meet the above-identified needs that are unsatisfied by the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for strategic profiling
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for strategic profiling that is readily accessible to multiple users at remote locations.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a strategic profiling method and apparatus that accurately reflects customers"" value drivers.
These and other objects of the invention, as well as a fuller understanding of the advantages thereof, can be had by reference to the following description and claims.
The Strategic Profiling method and apparatus of the present invention provides a remotely accessible multiple user tool that is preferably internet-based. The Strategic Profiler of the present invention employs the five factor model to develop an accurate predictor of customer actions. By making direct and indirect inquiries of individual customers and/or groups of customer representatives, the Strategic Profiler of the present invention develops and provides a graphic representation of customer ideals and simultaneously represents customer views of reality. These profiles are developed from statistical analysis of raw data, and are accurate to a high degree of mathematical precision.
Traditional customer research has centered on determining an existing or potential customer""s attitude. Attitudes are easily discovered by simply asking someone what he feels. However, attitudes are often a poor indicator of a customer""s purchasing behavior. Understanding behavior requires a much more complex discovery mechanism because most people are unable to definitively predict or communicate how they will behave in a certain situation.
Since the 1930""s, personologists have been trying to find the smallest number of synonym clusters, or factors, that account for individual differences in personality. Just in the last ten years, that effort has made giant strides because of the availability of modern, high-speed computers and factor-analysis programs. Considerable research and academic study has led to the development of multiple factor models for predicting human behavior such as consumer purchasing. One of the long held goals of psychology has been to establish a model that can conveniently describe human personality with the intent to use the model in the general understanding of personality and in the prediction of human behavior. Currently, a handful of models have risen to prominence, and some models are more generally accepted than others. One of the most prominent models in contemporary psychology is what is known as the five-factor model of personality.
The five-factor model incorporates five different variables into a conceptual model for describing personality. The five-factor theory is among the newest models developed for the description of personality, and it has been demonstrated to be among the most practical and applicable models available in the field of personality psychology.
The five factors are generally known by letter designations: S (for Sensitivity, often labeled N for Negative Emotionality or Neuroticism), O (for Openness, Culture, or Intellect), E (for Extraversion or Surgency), C (for Conscientiousness or Will to Achieve), and A (for Agreeableness).
Historically, multiple factor models have been developed and employed with varying levels of success. For example, Eysenck developed a theory that initially compared two dimensions of personality which he called the xe2x80x9cBig Twoxe2x80x9d. Later, Eysenck would add Psychoticism to his two initial factors of Extraversion/Introversion and Neuroticism. These three factors make up the xe2x80x9cBig Threexe2x80x9d, which is similar to the five factor model. The major difference is that there are only four super-factors accounted for, as Eysenck""s Psychoticism factor is a mixture of Agreeableness and Consciousness. This three factor model, referred to as the PEN model, remains popular today, The current five factor model can trace its evolution to Cattell""s complex system of 16 primary factors and 8 secondary factors, a system that has been criticized by many. Even Cattell to some extent admitted that his 16 factors tend to support four major factors. These four factors have been associated with the Big Five.
In all cases, the methodology of assessing personalities is similar. Raw data are collected usually through the use of questionnaires or interviews, and the responses are categorized, weighted and scored to provide numerical indices for each factor included in the model. The recent development of improved statistical analysis techniques, combined with potent and readily available computing power, led to the discovery that there were mathematical errors in several of the historically popular multiple factor behavior models. Furthermore, several different multiple factor models were determined to share basic variables, so the spectrum of reliable personality models based on multiple factors was reduced to a small number of well regarded models. The five factor model employed in the present invention offers the benefits of a well respected personality and behavior predicting model, while avoiding the possibilities of oversimplification presented by the multiple factor models employing fewer factors, as well as avoiding the complexity and necessary vagueness inherent in multiple factor models employing a greater number of factors. Persons of ordinary skill in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the Strategic Profiler of the present invention may employ any multiple factor behavior and personality model, with resultant changes in the quality and reliability of the output.